Man Arrested After Palo Alto Police Use App To Locate Stolen Tablet

PALO ALTO (CBS SF) – A man was arrested on suspicion of burglary, possessing stolen property and drug sales last week after Palo Alto police used a smartphone app to locate a stolen computer tablet, police said Monday.

Mario Pineda Zaragoza, 48, was arrested at his residence in the 1800 block of Loyola Drive in San Jose, where officers used the “Find My iPhone” app to track an iPad reported stolen in a residential burglary last Tuesday, police said.

At about 8 p.m. Tuesday, a woman in her 20s had phoned police to report a burglary at her home in the 3300 block of Birch Street in Palo Alto. The burglary allegedly occurred sometime between 10 a.m. and 7:45 p.m. that day, police said.

Officers observed that someone had entered the home by cutting a screen covering an open bedroom window, police said.

The person then made off with some electronics, including two iPad tablets, a laptop computer, a digital camera and jewelry, police said.

The victim helped police use her “Find My iPhone” app to trace one of the iPads to the Loyola Drive address, where officers contacted some residents and found the tablet in the home, police said.

Officers also recovered a laptop computer reported stolen in Milpitas and another laptop taken in a residential burglary in San Jose and returned the property to its rightful owners, according to police.

Aside from the iPad, police were unable to find the other items stolen in the burglary in Palo Alto, police said.

Police also confiscated several oxycodone and hydrocodone pills they found in Zaragoza’s residence that he allegedly had without a prescription.

Zaragoza was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on the various offenses, police said.

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